I have and use vinyls, but I use them differently.
I don’t keep a collection and they’re not rare or expensive. They cost next to nothing in second hand stores when I buy the odd “greatest hits” and mixed artist records that have no collectible value.
I use them with no regard to their longevity - I consume them. I play them on a cheap record player with a less than ideal needle or speakers, well aware that they will wear down and become useless over time. I don’t care. I don’t believe in the need to preserve everything that is old only due to it being old. I’ll leave that for the museums. I don’t run a museum.
I do it because I like the part of the ritual where you actually just listen to records and hear all the songs that are on there without having to make a choice or change tracks all the time.
A lot of records only have one or two hit songs. The rest is stuff I’d never choose to search for, and is never played on the radio. These are the tracks I like to hear, because I would not be exposed to them otherwise.
I am the sole man having lunch break with a group of women.
Whenever they start talking about how disgusting beards are, which is surprisingly more common that it ought to be, they always come to the same conclusion: Beards are nice if the man “keeps it”, by groming, cleaning, cutting, brushing, shaving the stubble and so on. A good beard is a plus, a bad beard is negative. And so they always make sure to point out that they don’t mean me, because I’m one of the guys with a good beard.
They’re all simultaneously looking at me, judging my beard and agreeing that this is the acceptable kind of beard, looking for my input and begging for my mansplanation.
However I just nod, and say “yeah yeah mm.mm. you have a point”. I don’t actually let them in on my secret to my “acceptable beard”, because what the fuck are they to do with that anyway? They don’t have beards.